impressioned a WB padlock

[quabillion]

So I got a call a couple of days ago from the woman who sold me the Hercules padlocks. She found another box of locks in her garage and remembered how excited i was over the first ones, so she called me to see if I wanted these too. You bet I do!! I told her, lol. I went back to her house and was shocked to see 12 WB padlocks all locked together. These were in poor condition, just like the Hercules, and with no keys. Brought my new toys home for $20.

I chose one that looked somewhat cleaner than the rest, picked it open, cleaned and lubed it up, then started impressioning. After about 30 minutes I had a working key. The blank I used was an Ilco W1. Once I was done I tried the key on the rest of the locks and found that they are keyed alike. The one I impressioned got a polish treatment (pictured) with some Brass-O and now it shines like new. As I get time I plan to polish all the others as well.

[MBI]

Nice work.

[macgng]

woot! nice job!

[jeffmoss26]

You da man! What are you gonna do with 12 locks? lol

[spanky2313]

You are good, lubed it before and didn't use a brass key. Your eye site is better than mine. Good Job

[femurat]

Good job man! I've been told to avoid lubing a lock if I have to impression it. I guess that the reasons are two: 1 lubing it makes the pins leave less marks because of the less friction; 2 a small drop of oil may be mistaken by a mark. As spanky2313 already said, if you were able to impression it despite these disadvantages, you're very good at it!

Cheers

[quabillion]

Thanks for the kind words yall.
As far as the "lube" goes, I used WD-40, which isnt really a proper lube, but I had to use something to clean it up as the lock had not had a key in it in more than 20 years.
My blank would not go all the way in without lots of force.
When I sprayed the WD-40 in alot of dust and grit came back out, turned the clear liquid to brown.

[Oldfast]

Neat little project. Thanks for sharing it w/ us. That lock cleaned up unbelievably well! Even w/ Brasso, they don't always end up looking that nice. Well done on the impressioning too. Great find & great job!

[quabillion]

So i got them all cleaned up, took about a week, a can of brasso, a wire brush, and a file for the thick paint.


Now they look like proper WB locks, proud to lock stuff up with them

Got a tarnished Hercules at the bottom, for shiny comparison.

[Oldfast]

You've spent some time, and it shows. What an amazing transformation.. I'm glad you posted the 'before' pics. I was never really big on cleaning or polishing my locks unless they REALLY needed it. But lately I've been giving a few of them some attention, and actually find it quite enjoyable to watch that original luster come back to life.

[darkhorse]

great result with the impressioning and the clean up